Empty Spaces
by CaptainAmberRose
Summary: Challenge fic for short and proud's Catharsis Experience Emotion Challenge. Hermione experiences something no-one should ever had to live through.


**For short and proud's Catharsis (Experience Emotion) Challenge. Hope you like it! Please read and review :)**

It was cruel how three words could shatter seven months of hope and delirious, delighted suspense into a thousand tiny shards.

_I'm so sorry._

No anger had the time to pierce her mind before it was swallowed whole and crushed by the burning ball of loss that enveloped her.

Seven months. Seven months of waiting. Seven long, desperate months of waiting to see her, waiting to hold her, to know her. Seven months obliterated in a second. A single second!

No-one should _ever_ have to know those words. And all she could think of were the tiny little dresses, the minute little boots to cover tiny, fragile toes, skin so paper thin and fingers so delicate – that she had bought just this morning with her mother.

Lips that would never talk, eyes that would never open, a face that would never smile, legs that would never walk, fingers that would never wrap around her own and hold on tight. All breath left her body and the need to scream, the need to scream so loud the gods would hear her – and she could demand of them – why, why, had they stolen her?

Robbed of motherhood in an instant so quick it left her breathless and utterly empty.

_I'm so sorry._

_No you're not_, she wanted to scream. Because if you were, then maybe my child would be alive. But it wasn't fair to blame them. It wasn't their fault.

But it wasn't hers either. So why was she being punished? What had she done that warranted this kind of torture? Surely the war had been enough? Had there not been enough loss of life?

Composure had long since departed, as she raked viciously angry hands through mousy brown hair, searching for a reason, an answer, something to stop her throbbing, aching mind from desperately, imploringly seeking the solution to the oldest question of all.

_Why?_

The sobs shaking her wretched frame did nothing to lessen the swollen, agonising emptiness that bellowed inside of her. Tears burning like acid down red, puffy cheeks, bruised skin beneath her eyes that screamed of the eight hours of shattering, exhausting labour, only to be told her child's heart had stopped.

_You're wizards! _She wanted to scream,_ Why can't you fix this?_

The rustle of the flimsy plastic curtain screamed of unwanted visitors and she tried to ignore the soft clatter of feet on the floor and softly spoken words that were the opposite of what she wanted to hear.

"I'm sorry_._"

_I don't give a damn if you're sorry,_ She wanted to spit, _Unless you can put the world back on its axis then you can sod back off to wherever you came from and stay there with your apologies and meaningless platitudes. _

It was Ron and although she wanted to send him away and grieve alone, he had almost as much right as she did to do so.

_Almost_.

He had made no move to touch her. To comfort her. Was he uncomfortable? She would have shrugged away the comfort, but he hadn't even made the effort to bother.

"It's probably for the best, eh?" he whispered softly, "We aren't married and we're in no state to look after a child. My job barely pays enough as is-"

Something inside her snapped and the loss flared suddenly into fury.

"For the best?! That was my child, our child! She's dead and you're saying this is for the best?! Our daughter is lying in some god-awful box, waiting for us to bury her – just who is this best for? For me? Is it the best for you? I'm terribly sorry that our daughter was such a goddam inconvenience to you that you would have the audacity and lack of sensitivity to tell me it's for the best!"

She was aware that she was screaming, nigh on hysterical. Her breaths came in short gasps but she was so angry, so painfully, emptily furious that someone could be so cruel and dismissive of _her_ daughter's life that she barely paused for air.

"I was right in my first assessment of you, Ronald Weasley. You have the emotional range of a teaspoon, because god knows a teaspoon would be a better father, partner and friend than _you_ would ever be. Now get out!"

He was already backing away, the coward, before the curtains clinked shut again and it was silent.

The next few hours were fraught with sombre visitors, each having managed a different manner of apology that drove her to chase them all away.

After enduring fifteen rounds of funeral faces, terrible advice and those who had the _audacity_ to actually pretend they understood her situation. As if they'd _been_ through it. The advice, the advice, the advice. Advice? Every single thing that tumbled from their mouths was an insult.

"You'll have another baby." Another baby? She didn't want another baby, she wanted _her_ daughter! Her _little_ daughter. No child she had could ever replace her. She hadn't had the chance to say hello, or even goodbye. She hadn't even been able to look her in the eyes. To meet her. How could another baby ever make up for the loss of this?

"At least it happened before she was born. Imagine how bad it would have been if you'd got to spend time with her." Imagine? She would have given anything in the world just to spend a few more seconds with her. She would have given a fortune, a lifetime, her career, her happiness, her life for a few seconds with that smiling face and those beautiful brown eyes, so like her own.

Conversing with these sensitivity starved morons had left her drained and bare, anger dissipating into a hopeless, mind numbing pool of utter despair.

And as the last visitor made to stand, she prayed for them to hurry. And waited desperately, patiently, for the cheap plastic curtain to fall at last so she could grieve in peace.

And with a weary sigh, she watched them tug the curtain into place behind them, falling backwards onto her pillows.

With a glance towards the ceiling, tears unbidden began to seep from tired, tired eyes as she whispered a good night to her missing daughter, the phantom weight in her arms weighing down upon her heart as she glanced down wearily at the empty space in her arms. The empty space in both her arms and heart.

_Sleep well Persephone_.

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